Protective 'Mistakes' Of The Tafsaret

כ'ז באייר תשס"ח
Mab 28

In follow-up to my previous entry (Video Vault On Fire At Universal Studios), I note that Reb Gutman Locks of Mystical Paths writes regarding mezuzot:

To understand, as least on a basic level, why it appears that G-d is smiting people because of their sofer’s mistakes, remember the principle “portion across from portion” (mida kenegid mida). Everything comes according to its measure and for a good reason. Certainly you know that there are no accidents in the world. We may not be able to always understand why any particular thing comes to us, but we do know that it all comes for a good reason.

Agreed.

When something happens to your hand, (seemingly good or bad), you have to ask, “Why did this come to my hand?” In order to be able to understand why that happened to you, remember that it had to come because of something that you did with your hand, not with your foot, or any other part of your body. Otherwise, what hope would there be of ever being able to guide your life? G-d runs the world by the principle of mida keneged mida for this very reason—so we will be able to understand the consequences of our actions. The consequences must reflect the actions.

Why did the man in our story choose that sofer (scribe)? Why did he get that particular mezuzah? All this came for a reason. To lose sight of this is to believe in a random, chaotic world with haphazard results flying down upon our heads.

Agreed.

As far as “magically” changing the mezuzahs, remember the story of Elisha, Master of Wings (Shabbos 49a)? He was caught by the Romans wearing his tefillin when there was a life threatening ban against wearing them. He quickly took off the head piece of his tefillin and tried to conceal it in his cupped hands. When the Roman soldier, threatening his life, asked him what was in his hands, he said that it was a dove. The soldier forced him to open his hands, and sure enough there was a live dove there. Did G-d magically change his tefillin into a living bird? Surely He changed it into the bird, but not with magic.

Clearly, disagreed.

From older entries on the tafsaret:

With a gematria of 358, tafsaret (טפסרט) is a rare type of sofer; tafsaret is a feminine scribal artisan described by a Hebrew word of Sumerian roots. From the language of ancient Sumer [1], sar means "write". Taf means "board". The Hebrew verb root סרט carries the meanings of "script", "a tool for designing" and "marking" [2].

The letters of tafsaret contain the root (ספר) of the word sofer (scribe סופר). Yet tafsaret also contains two letters ט in addition to the root letters of ha-sofer. These two letters ט have a combined gematria of 18 (חי) - thereby bestowing "life" into the scribal writing of tafsaret. Specifically, the two additional letters of חי represent the chayah and yechidah soul levels which pertain to actualizing messianic consciousness.

Footnotes:

[1] How The Hebrew Language Grew, Edward Horowitz
[2] Maskilon 1, Hebrew-English Dictionary based on Verb Roots, Abraham Solomonick and David Morrison